Legacy Trust Reduces Stock Holdings in Accenture PLC $ACN

Legacy Trust lowered its position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 16.1% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 1,626 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 313 shares during the period. Legacy Trust’s holdings in Accenture were worth $486,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $19,912,594,000 after purchasing an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 63.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after purchasing an additional 3,490,569 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.5% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 6,766,369 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,111,378,000 after purchasing an additional 228,939 shares during the period. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.1% in the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 6,163,393 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,923,225,000 after purchasing an additional 126,548 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 3.3% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,129,053 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,600,470,000 after buying an additional 164,573 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $245.39 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $153.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.20, a P/E/G ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.28. Accenture PLC has a 52 week low of $229.40 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $249.57 and its two-hundred day moving average is $283.36.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. Research analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a $1.63 dividend. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.7%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.72%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on ACN. BNP Paribas Exane lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $300.00 to $255.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 24th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $372.00 to $285.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Evercore ISI set a $280.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. HSBC lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $240.00 to $215.00 in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $355.00 to $315.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $300.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total value of $635,794.95. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at $2,290,387.05. This represents a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Mauro Macchi sold 500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total transaction of $141,170.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,283 shares in the company, valued at approximately $644,582.22. This trade represents a 17.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 2,954 shares of company stock worth $834,280 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.